I've been trying to make sense of the article, too. I've determined that the 1994 reference is talking about Cambridge Analytica's parent company,
SCL Group. Presumably, any election influencing done then was via non-Internet media.
As I’m digging into this, I see the founder of SCL Group, Nigel Oakes, also created another group with a similar mission that had a U.S. Army psyops specialist as one of their members—interesting.